


Homecoming

by Forestwater



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, spoilers for season 4 ep 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 04:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20942279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestwater/pseuds/Forestwater
Summary: A much-needed ending to "The Forest."Originally published August 2019





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Just clearing out some old tumblr files and found this bad boy. Thought it was cute, although I very clearly ran out of spoons at the end. XD Oh well, still fun.

_“Son of a bitch!”_

His eyes had barely closed when he was dragged upright, fingers closed chokingly tight around his collar.

He opened bleary eyes to see Gwen’s face, inches from his own. He hadn’t expected the sweep of nostalgia that welled up in his chest at the sight of her — the rush of emotion at the first friendly face he’d seen in over a week (the first friendly _human_ face, anyway), how much the relief of seeing her would make him feel like crying. “Gwen, I —”

“How fucking dare you,” she snarled, and David woke up enough to notice that her face really wasn’t all that friendly at all, “you absolute _piece of shit_, how the fuck _dare_ you come back here like nothing happened!” She shook him, pain searing through his skull from the mostly-faded lump on his forehead to the back, where he’d been hurled against a tree trunk just hours earlier. “You didn’t even wake me up!”

“I —” he tried again, but she released him suddenly, practically throwing him back against the headboard and lunging backward, stalking back and forth across the cabin like a caged animal. “Oof!”

“You could’ve been anywhere!” she raged, pausing every few paces to throw him a glare that pinned him in place and shoved any explanations back down his throat. (She’d made him cry before, more than once, just with the malice she could pack into a single glare.) “And of fucking _course_ you didn’t have your phone like a _normal goddamn person_ — you are the _stupidest_, most _irresponsible_ —”

She froze, staring at him like she was taking him in for the first time. “Wait,” she said slowly. “What the hell _happened_ to you?”

David opened his mouth to explain — and promptly burst into tears.

* * *

Gwen had worked at Camp Campbell for four years now, a fact she generally chose to forget. But in those four summers she’d developed a handful of routines to get her through the more frequent camp disasters — which was why when David’s mouth started wobbling and his eyes filled with tears, the red haze that’d filled her vision when she woke up to see her missing coworker in his too-long-empty bed dissipated in preparation for the Making David Feel Better (And Therefore Functional at His Job) routine that was practically an involuntary reaction, it was so ingrained in her muscle memory.

At which point she’d noticed the beard. And the budget Tarzan outfit. And the makeshift cast around his leg.

“Hey, stop that,” she murmured ineffectually into David’s shoulder (she’d found herself kneeling next to him on the bed and mid-hug before she’d even realized it; the routine was etched into her very bones at this point). “Don’t cry, David, it’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” he whimpered, and he sounded so pathetic the last of her fury fizzled out like a wet match, replaced with an almost dizzying relief that he was home. She wouldn’t have to do this godforsaken job alone anymore.

She took a deep breath, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. (There were strange ridges beneath the leaves that made up his shirt, but she figured it wasn’t the time to ask.) “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said instead, biting back the addendum that she’d totally had every reason to be mad before he started crying and making her feel like a jerk. “I was just scared. It’s…really hard to do all this without you.”

Understatement of the century. She’d even been tempted to ask Campbell for help a couple times.

“How are the campers?” David’s voice was soft, thick with tears and snot, but there was an undercurrent of his normal self underneath it and the relief that he was back sharpened, so Gwen forced a nonchalant chuckle.

“They’ve been having a great time, cause we’ve been doing Don’t Ever Leave My Sight Camp for the last couple days. A lot of indoor stuff. They started calling it vacation.”

“Oh, Gwen.” And was there a hint of disappointment in his tone?

“Hey, the last time I looked away from someone, he disappeared without a word,” she snapped, before forcing her voice back into something resembling soothing. “I thought maybe the Woodscouts had gotten you, or that cult freak had come back.”

He shuddered, shaking his head. “I just fell into a canoe and hit my head. It floated away before I woke up.”

“You know, if you hadn’t left your phone in the cabin maybe you wouldn’t have gotten lost.”

David’s shoulder lifted under hers, a shrug. “I’m sure that’s true, Gwen.”

She took a moment to revel in the rare occurrence of David actually acknowledging her being right, before adding, “So what was it like, Bear Grylls?”

He hesitated a moment. “Oh, it wasn’t bad,” he said cheerfully, if a little weakly. “I love nature.”

“So this was kinda like a vacation for you too, huh?”

“I guess you could say that.” He pulled away from the hug — after less than five minutes, which was a personal record; and another personal record that she was reluctant to let go; she felt an almost compulsive urge to tug him back into her arms until she’d satisfactorily convinced herself he was alive — and smiled at her, scratching his beard absently. (She wondered if he had fleas, and resolved to fumigate the whole cabin when David took the campers on their next overnight hiking trip.) “Thank you for everything, CBFL,” he said, his sincerity making her skin prickle. “I’m so glad to see you.”

She looked away, forcing some energy into her voice. “Yeah, well, this little trip of yours means you don’t get any vacation or sick days for the rest of your life, Greenwood.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m just glad to be home.”


End file.
